DC Mayhem Presents: Brave and Bold Team-Up #1

Author note, This is part one of my Mayhem trial series. Pt 2 can be found Here Find all the Mayhem here DC Mayhem Library

Detective Chimp awoke hanging from a cold stone wall. His wrists bound in metal cuffs and hung over over his head with a thick chain. A few experimental tugs told him the chain and cuffs were designed for creatures much stronger then himself. Somewhere, someone is sobbing loudly. His head is pounding and vision is a little blurry, but he could just make out the blue figure similarly strung against the opposite wall.

"About time you woke up, Bobo." Blue Devil grinned. A cut on the side of his mouth reopened and began to bleed.

A week before...

The back storeroom is hot and dimly lit. A smokey haze drifts over the air heavy enough to choke those with uninitiated lungs. The folding table is littered with empty beer bottles and food crumbs. Cards are held close like newborn children and desperate mental calculations are made.

Detective Chimp barely glanced at his cards. According to his exceptional memory, and card counting skills, he could beat two of the other hands. And he knew from experience he could bluff the third.

"So you've been to Gorilla city? What's that like?" Tammy, the only female player asked. She had a crap hand and was stalling.

"Its a bit like London, except it rains less and you can't find a good spot of tea." Detective Chimp replied curtly. "Now you tell me, are you enjoying the smell of chimp sweat so well you're prolonging the experience?" He held his cards with his toes and lit his pipe.

"I was just making conversation--" She mumbled.

"Monkey man is right. Play or fold Tight-walk." Ed the new player grunted. No one knew if that was his name or not, but it was stitched on his shirt. Of course by that logic his name could have been sweaty pits. Or bad aftershave. He struck Detective Chimp as the type who used deodorant as a substitute for bathing.

The third player had the best hand but a bad poker face. More specifically his foot gave him away. It tapped when he had a bad hand. He shifted his right leg when he had a good hand, making his shades not only pointless but silly as well.

"I am not a monkey. I am a chimp." Detective Chimp had corrected Ed on this three times already. But if this evolutionary throwback thought he could get under his fur, he had another thing coming.

"You're both rude, disgusting animals." Tammy throws her cards down and stormed out.

"One can judge a man by the company he keeps." Detective Chimp commented dryly.

"Ha. You told her." Ed said, oblivious to the irony.

"Fortune cookie?" The third player asked. He had been designated "Skeetch" By Ed who had a nickname for everyone.

"Euripides actually." Detective Chimp replied.

"Sounds Japanese to me." Skeetch said.

"It is Japanese stupid. Fortune cookies is Chinese." Ed replied.

For a moment Detective Chimp had an attack of conscience, and wondered if its morally right to take these amoebas money.

"What'cha got skeetch?" Ed asked.

"Raise." Skeetche replied, and shifted his right leg slightly.

"Me too. All or nothing eh?." Detective Chimp pushed all his chips forward.

"Heh. Monkey see monkey do." Ed chuckled. Or choked. Either way its an unpleasant sound.

"Well yes, the monkeys proclivity for repeating actions is well known. Personally I feel they would get on better with a parliamentary system. Oh listen to me going on about politics. And I am not a monkey. You in or out Ed?." All pretense of chivalry is gone.

Ed obviously did not like being called out and scrowled with open resentment. Then his expression changed to a forced smile. He glanced at his cards for effect. "Well, I'm out. Good game. Same time next weak?" The forced smile again as he pushed back from the table and walked heavily out of the room.

"Just me and you then." Skeetch commented.

"You have a firm grasp on the situation." Detective Chimp replied.

His heightened sense of smell picks up the scent of fear and anger as Ed stormed back in, and crowbared Skeetch in the head with a sickening crunch. Skeetch falls out of his seat unconscious, or worse.

"Got something for you too, you f**ki'n Monkey!!" He pulls a pistol from his waist band. Detective Chimp doged to the left and pitched a bottle fast ball style at Eds face. The bottle and Eds nose bust at the same time with a spray of blood, and cheap beer. The ensuing scream is impressive in volume, if not more feminine then expected.

Detective Chimp leaped onto the table and tackled Ed to the ground with a crash, then he twisted Eds gun hand savagely with a snap, inciting another scream.

"You humans and your guns." He sneered as he clutched Ed tightly by the throat. "Going to shoot a chap over some cards eh? Perhaps we should cast aside the mask of civility and descend into barbarism?" He grinned, displaying wicked teeth. "What if I tear your face off and eat it? I have wondered in the past what human tastes like." He paused and turned Eds face first one way, then the other, as if inspecting it. He picked up the broken bottle and examined the jagged part. "It seems to agree with Grodd very well. Now then, what am I?"

"Chagg." Ed gagged.

"What's that?" Detective Chimp loosened his grip slightly.

"A Cak-Chimp." He choked out.

"Don't forget it." Detective Chimp Punched him twice. Once to knock him out, and again for practise.

@wildvine Interesting. What I said earlier stands. It's well written and a very good use of dialogue. I also particularly enjoy the characterization of Detective Chip. One issue I have is how the second part connects with the opening. How did chimp end up in chains? I'm sure you're going to explain that in the near future of course, but it may have been a little better had you explained it sooner, unless you plan for a whole lot of things to happen in-between poker and dungeon time. Outside of that there were a couple of typos, and you have a very interesting sentence structure, but I'm no expert with grammar myself.

Such as, "DC loosens his grip slightly" should be "DC loosened his grip slightly", as in it already happened as opposed to happening right now. Again, this isn't mandatory... I just tend to find third/present somewhat uncomfortable to read.

"So you've been to Gorilla city? What's that like?" Tammy, the only female player asked. She had a crap hand and was stalling.

"Its a bit like London, except it rains less and you can't find a good spot of tea" Detective Chimp replied curtly. "Now you tell me, are you enjoying the smell of chimp sweat so well you're prolonging the experience?" He held his cards with his toes while lighting his pipe.

Holding cards with his feet whilst being droll, very good.

@wildvine said:

"You humans and your guns" D.C. sneers, clutching Ed tightly by the throat. "Going to shoot a chap over some cards eh? Perhaps we should cast aside the mask of civility and descend into barbarism?" He grins, displaying wicked teeth. "What if i tear your face off and eat it? I have wondered in the past what human tastes like"

Very good. Detective Chimp is an animal after all and if pushed can go all ape on people! Good work

I liked it,I thought Detective Chimp came off well and not overly stereotypically British with natural flowing references such as the weather(seriously we moan about it all the time).You made Ed really disgusting and a bit of a wimp which contradicted Detective Chimp well and I didn't find the fight scene confusing at all.The only really thing that confused me a little was calling Detective Chimp D.C but I'm sure I'll get used to that............

As far back as the 19th century, a cookie very similar in appearance to the modern fortune cookie was made in Kyoto, Japan, and there is a Japanese temple tradition of random fortunes, called o-mikuji . The Japanese version of the cookie differs in several ways: they are a little bit larger; are made of darker dough; and their batter contains sesame and miso rather than vanilla and butter. They contain a fortune; however, the small slip of paper was wedged into the bend of the cookie rather than placed inside the hollow portion. This kind of cookie is called tsujiura senbei ( 占煎 餅 ? ) and are still sold in some regions of Japan, [2] notably the neighborhood of Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine in Kyoto. [3] Most of the people who claim to have introduced the cookie to the United States are Japanese, so the theory is that these bakers were modifying a cookie design which they were aware of from their days in Japan. -- http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_cookie

As far back as the 19th century, a cookie very similar in appearance to the modern fortune cookie was made in Kyoto, Japan, and there is a Japanese temple tradition of random fortunes, called o-mikuji . The Japanese version of the cookie differs in several ways: they are a little bit larger; are made of darker dough; and their batter contains sesame and miso rather than vanilla and butter. They contain a fortune; however, the small slip of paper was wedged into the bend of the cookie rather than placed inside the hollow portion. This kind of cookie is called tsujiura senbei ( 占煎 餅 ? ) and are still sold in some regions of Japan, [2] notably the neighborhood of Fushimi Inari-taisha shrine in Kyoto. [3] Most of the people who claim to have introduced the cookie to the United States are Japanese, so the theory is that these bakers were modifying a cookie design which they were aware of from their days in Japan. -- http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_cookie

How cool. Why is this not being blogged by you? Is it because you are domainless right now because if it is, we need to work on that pronto.

As for you Wildvine, this was a very, very enjoyable read --- fresh into this world I have no preconceived notions of the characters so maybe it might explain why I felt just fine in getting to know these characters and I am plenty happy that I get to jump from this directly into part two without waiting.

@wildvine: Enjoyed reading this even more the second time. A couple of grammatical errors that I noticed are your inconsistency with past/present tense and the lack of apostrophes to signify possession. Other than that, great work!